Escaping reality

Jak hadn't been sure what to expect when Lara opened her mouth, but this certainly wasn't it.

No sound was coming out of Lara's mouth. But he could hear singing. It wasn't her voice. No. It wasn;t human! It sounded synthesized. It certainly wasn't Lara.

He jerked as the feelings that had been rising steadily through his body simply vanished. He could feel something pulsing out from Lara as she squeezed his hand. It was modulated, it seemed musical. Sort of.

"Finally!" The man behind the wall crowed. "Scan her. Get every scanner we have on her! The boss wants… wants..." He trailed off as Lara spun to glare at the wall and the whatever she was doing changed.

Suddenly, the sound wasn't synthesized. It still wasn't a human girl, but this time it wasn't modulated as music. No. This time it was pure auditory hell. It was raw emotion given form in sound and Jak felt pain flare through him as a scream sounded from the intercom.

"Lara..." Jak managed to croak out. Lara spun, eyes huge as he wilted. She caught him, her eyes suddenly filled with tears as the music -or whatever the hell it was- faded. She held him tight and he could hear something. He had no idea how he could hear it or even what it was. But he understood it. He didn't know how, but he did. It sounded like a scared little girl. Lara?

01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100001

She said 'Help. She was calling for help. But… Who and why? That was binary. A simple language normally used for computers. But she was speaking again in that same odd way.

01001001 00100000 01101000 01110101 01110010 01110100 00100000 01101000 01101001 01101101 00100000 01100001 01100111 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100001 In the same odd way, she spoke through her sobbing. Jak understood that too. She said 'I hurt him again.'

Jak nearly collapsed as something else replied. Whatever that was, it wasn't human. The sheer power of whatever was replying to her was mind blowing. Almost literally. What was worse? The numbers seemed to come from inside him! Which made no sense at all.

01010111 01000101 00100000 01000011 01001111 01001101 01000101

Someone or something had just said 'We Come' and that had nearly killed Jak with the feedback.

"Lara, what the hell?" Jak managed to grate out as the agony faded along with whatever she had been doing. She shook her head quickly, pulling him towards the door. "It is locked, Lara!"

She grinned at him as she touched the door and to his amazement, it clicked open! He stumbled and she held him upright. Just outside the door, two crumpled forms lay as they had fallen. The Cerberus guards. Jak stared at the Cerberus troopers.

"Are they…?"

Jak snarled at himself and grabbed the weapon from one of them. The fingers were slack. Dead or unconscious, it made little difference at the moment. If this was anything like most Alliance bases, he had minutes at best to effect an escape. He hadn't been a skilled marksman like some of his team, but he hadn't been a slouch either. You didn't survive long in Alliance Special Forces without learning to be adaptable. Even years of being sedentary in institutions hadn't dulled his skills completely. He checked the readouts and nodded as he saw the weapon fully loaded. But it was odd. A Mattock was a semi auto weapon. This weapon's selector was marked 'Safe' and 'Full'. It also showed thermal clips. The Alliance hadn't been using those when he had been active duty, but he had kept up with the recent theory that had quickly gone into widespread practice as soon as everyone realized how much better they were. Not much else to do in the institution but read at times. The Geth designed thermal devices allowed weapon overheating to be dissipated much more safely and efficiently than the old style heat sinks he was used to. A lever on the side would eject spent heat sinks. He tried it and nothing happened. He stared at the lever and then kicked himself. He hadn't used any yet!

Jak started off down the hallway, his eyes roving in patterns that he had thought forgotten. The muzzle of his rifle tracked his eyes.

Neither spoke as they dashed through the silent halls. It didn't seem to be a very large… um… ship. Jak paused as he saw a display of decks. It was a small ship indeed, maybe the size of an Alliance frigate. Those didn't have huge crews, but Jak wasn't in armor and only had a few clips for his rifle. If Lara hadn't disabled everyone…

As if his thoughts had caused it, an alarm started blaring. Lara pulled his hand and they ran on toward the area marked 'Shuttle Bay' on the map. Jak had no idea of he could fly a modern shuttle, but to get away from Cerberus, he would do the best he could or give them a hell of a mess to clean up. They ran through corridors, some with still forms in Cerberus uniforms, others empty but for the blaring alarms.

Sobs jerked Jak up short. He peered in an open door. Janice knelt beside a form in Cerebrus armor. She had obviously taken his helmet off. The man looked a little like Janice, but his eyes were silvery metal. She stared up at Jak, eyes hopeless.

"What have they done to my boy?" She screamed.

"Janice?" Jak asked as he scanned the room for more threats. None shone, but he wasn't going to trust easily, if ever again.

"I demanded to talk to him or I wouldn't help any more. They brought me here to talk to him." Janice said weakly. "He didn't. I tried. He wouldn't talk to me. Then he… He cried out and fell. I got the helmet off and… What have they done?"

"I don't know, Janice." Jak said softly. "But we have to go. Now."

"I can't." Janice said weakly. "I can't leave him. He is all I have left since Matt died." Jak knew Janice husband had died but he didn't know any details.

"That is not your son anymore, Janice." Jak tried again. "You know what Cerberus does! This..." He shook his head. "We have no time. Either they will wake up enough troops to take us or self destruct. Either way, we are screwed if we do not go now! We need to go."

"Go." Janice said sadly, touching the still face beside her. "Leave me… I..." She broke off as Lara opened her mouth and the not-a-sound from before came out. Janice stiffened, but then she rose to her feet, staring at Lara, wide eyed. "Lara? Wha-?"

Lara ran to Janice and hugged her tight. She looked at Jak with wide eyes. The music or whatever it was changed, from a soothing melody to a battle march.

"Of course, you are going to insist even without words." Jak said sourly. Lara smiled at him and hugged Janice again. "Fine, fine, whatever, but no more strays and if you bring home a kitten, we are going to have words..." Lara made an innocent face and Jak just snarled and turned to go.

"Um, what?" Janice asked and then her eyes widened further. "And where are your clothes?"

"Cerberus tried to get me to sleep with Lara." Jak said as he started off, Lara pulled Janice who wasn't resisting much if at all. "They did something to me. Drugged us both. She undid it. Somehow. No idea how."

"I should be freaking." Janice said weakly as Lara pulled her along. "But I am not. Are you doing this?" She asked Lara who nodded. "How?" Lara made a face and Janice groaned. "They took your tablet. I bet it is gone. We will need to find you another." Lara nodded and they continued through the ship.

Jak paused as the hallway ended at a hatch marked 'Shuttle Bay'. He shook his head.

"This was too easy." He looked at Janice, but Lara shook her head as the woman slowly closed her eyes, but let Lara continue to pull her along. "A trap? A test? What the hell are they playing at?"

Lara shook her head again and nodded to the hatch. Jak looked at her and sighed a little.

"They are almost certainly waiting for us in there, Lara." Jak said slowly. Lara nodded. "Do you happen to know how many?" He went still as she nodded again! "What? How many?" She held up her free hand and splayed five fingers twice. "Ten?" Lara nodded again and Jak groaned. "If we get out of this, we are gonna have a very long talk, girl."

Lara grinned at him and then moved Janice so she was out of the way. She pointed to one side of the hatch and motioned with five fingers. She pointed to the other and showed three. She pointed back towards the door and showed two.

"Five, three and two is ten. You know exactly where they are." Jak said slowly. Lara nodded. "And you cannot disable them again or you would have." Lara shook her head. "Is there another way in?" Lara shook her head. "Joy. One rifle against ten? We won't win this."

Lara looked at him and seemed to be thinking hard. Then she nodded slowly. Jak looked at her.

"I won't surrender, Lara." Jak said sternly.

Lara shook her head and held up a hand. Her thumb closed across her palm, then her pinky. Then her ring finger. Jak stiffened as he realized she was counting down to something! He braced himself as she closed her middle finger, but when she closed her index finger, nothing seemed to happen. Until gunfire and screams sounded from just beyond the hatch. Jak stared from the hatch to Lara, but she made a 'get on with it' gesture.

Jak keyed the hatch and stepped into madness. There a been a sweet ambush set up just inside the shuttle bay. Several Cerberus troops had been augmented with LOKI Mechs and all looked to be armed with nonlethal weapons. They wanted Jak and Lara alive.

But someone has sprung the ambush before Jak and Lara had appeared. No, not someone. Some things!

"GETH!?"

Jak stopped short as a pair of Geth Pyros fired their flamers as one, catching a pair of Cerberus LOKI mechs in a literal crossfire. Two Geth troopers were firing from cover near the back of the bay, two dead Cerberus snipers at their feet. It was all Jak could do not to open fire at the machines that were slaughtering the Cerberus troops. Lara pushed past him, still pulling Janice along, heading for one of the shuttles.

"Lara?" Jak muttered as the geth made way for her! Indeed, two of them were flanking her from cover, keeping the Cerberus troops form getting clear shots. Lara waved at him urgently.

"Stop them!" The call came from the hated voice of the Cerberus goon who had been hell bent on seeing Jak and Lara copulate. "Deploy it now! Now!"

Everything stopped as a crate near one wall opened and a YMIR Mech shouldered its way out of it.

"Oh shit." Jak muttered as he dashed into cover. Every geth in the area was firing at the heavy Cerberus mech now. Not that it mattered. Almost all of the Cerberus troops were down or dead and none of the shots the geth were pouring onto the mech seemed to have any effect at all. Both Pyros tried, but one took a direct hit from a rocket and disintegrated. The other took a backhanded slap that only seemed gentle, sending the smaller automaton flying to hit the wall and slide down. It wasn't going to get up from that.

"Corner and capture. We need the male and female. All others are expendable." The Cerberus man commanded. Jak slid away from the mech even as the geth troopers threw grenades at it that erupted in balls of plasma. What? Since when did geth use grenades?

Why was this so familiar? Jak felt odd. Like he knew what to do. He did not know how or why, but he knew what to do. He darted to the side, laid his rifle over the top of his cover and opened fire. He did pretty well. The rifle was insanely accurate even at full auto. He wasn't expecting much. As expected, his rifle rounds bounced off the mech's heavy plating just as the geths' rounds had. But every geth that was still mobile laid fire at the same point that Jak hit. Their accuracy was phenomenal.

It did no good.

The grenades had perhaps scorched the paint, nothing more. The rifle rounds just bounced off and the mech picked off geth after geth. Something erupted in his brain.

01000111 01101111 00100001

"No!" Jak said sharply through the pain that flared in his head, not even sure how he knew he had just been told to 'Go!'

01000111 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100001

Before Jak could respond to the command to 'Go now!', his body was in motion. He hadn't wanted to dart out of his cover, that seemed like suicide. But the mech didn't fire at him. Instead, it kept picking off the geth. Now, there were only three of them, but they kept firing at the mech and moving to deny it easy kills.

Jak slid into the shuttle and to his amazement, it started powering up.

"There is no time, Collains Pilot." A new voice sounded. A synthesized one. It seemed to come from Lara who was busy strapping Janice in as the woman mumbled. "Sit in the pilot's seat. Now."

"I haven't flown anything in eight years!" Jak complained as he threw himself into the seat. He barely noticed the hatch sealing behind him and the geth outside still firing.

"You have combat flying experience that we lack, Collains Pilot. You may need it." The other said as Jak reached of the controls and they came alive without him touching a thing! Jak recoiled. "There is no time, Collains Pilot! You must fly now." Lara threw herself into the seat beside Jak and started strapping herself in with the ease of long practice as he took the controls. The controls were similar to what he had known when flying shuttles for the Alliance, if far more advanced.

"Stand down, Lieutenant Collains." The smug voice of the Cerberus scum was loud over an internal speak Jak flicked it off, not even looking at the controls. It chimed back on. "We need you and the girl alive, but there is nothing in our orders about hale. The doors are closed. You are going nowhere."

"Maybe not." Jak said flatly as he activated a panel marked 'Weapons'. "But pardon me for not making it easy for you." He stared as pair of thumps sounded from either side of the ship and chaos erupted ahead of the shuttle. Whatever it had for weapons was powerful. "Oh, I like this upgrade!"

He hit the weapons again and two more explosions sounded form close ahead of the shuttle. He keyed an external view and the mech was visible directly ahead of the shuttle, blocking its way through sheer bulk.

"How much do those cost, I wonder?" He mused. Lara flashed him a grin as he fired again and the mech took two direct hits. Unlike the rifle rounds, its armor wasn't proof against whatever Cerberus had built into this thing. It smoked, then fell backwards and started to burn fitfully. "I sincerely hope they take that out of your pay."

"You will not escape, traitor!" The Cerberus flunky declared even as the door ahead of the shuttle flashed green and started to open. "What? No!"

"Being called a traitor by a traitor is a bit much." Jak keyed for power and the shuttle responded to every touch just like his old Mantis had. Odd that. "Do you even know the definition? Course, that would require you to have some sense of loyalty, empathy or ethics and I pretty sure Cerberus removes those from its goons. So long, asshole."

He hit full power and ignored screams that sounded through the hull as the ship flew out past the kinetic barrier that held the atmosphere in while the door was open and the ship was in space.

"Guess they had guys on the hull, getting ready to burn their way… in..." Jak's words trailed off as he saw the reading of a ship in the near distance. It wasn't one he knew, but the computer did. It identified it and highlighted it in red. A geth ship! "Oh shit."

He readied the weapons again, but paused as Lara laid a hand on his. He looked at her and she shook her head, giving his hand a squeeze.

"Lara, they are geth!" He declared. "They kill humans." Lara looked at him and her face fell. She looked away. He readied the weapons, but they deactivated! "What? No!" He hit controls to evade, but the shuttle did not respond to his increasingly frantic commands. The geth ship grew larger on his screens.

Something touched the back of his head and Jak suddenly had no control over his body. He fought whatever it was, but Lara's hands were unstrapping him, helped by an oddly colored pair of three fingered hands.

"Lara..." Jak managed to beg through whatever was holding him as he was laid out on the deck and a geth took his place at the pilot's seat. It wasn't any design he had ever seen in any Alliance briefings. It was green and small. It did not seem to have any weapons. "No..."

"It will be all right, Jak." The voice came from the geth, but it was a human female's voice! He stared at Lara and she smiled and nodded. "Yes, Jak. That is my voice. AF-43765 was kind enough to lend me its audio synthesizer."

"You are working...with geth." Jak felt faint. He felt weak. He felt…

"No Jak." Lara's voice was gentle from the geth as her hand rubbed his arm. "They are working with me to try and fix this mess that I made. Rest now. You have much healing to do, my love."

He took those impossible words into slumber.